Sexlink Wackbirds - I mean - Backwards?

[Bunnylady]

Okay, I think I "get" the usual sexlink thing, how a gold roo over silver hens gives silver cockerels and gold pullets. But what if you do it backwards, a silver roo over a gold hen? I have a Serama pair, the roo is a Birchen and the hen is Wheaten. From one clutch of six eggs, (which, at 2-3 months old, appear to be 3 of each) all of the little pullets have no gold feathers at all, and all of the cockerels have gold. I have more eggs hatching from this pair as I type. If this continues to be true with this next clutch, can I assume that the roo is homozygous for silver, and all of his daughters will be some variation of a silver color, while all of this hen's sons will be gold?

 

[RareBreedFancier]

A silver roo over a gold hen will give silver pullets and silver/gold split cockerels that can look golden. They are basically silver with gold leaking through. They can pass on both gold and silver to their offspring.

Yes, your roo is most likely homozygous for silver and his daughters will be silver. The sons with this hen are splits.

Hope that helps

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

Usually, but Seramas can throw off any color from any color. There is no "color chart" for Seramas.

 

[RAREROO]

No The reverse is not going to give you sexlinks. The males from both crosses of a Gold roo on a Silver hen and a Silver Roo on a gold hen will be pretty much the same color, They will be split for both silver and gold genes and will look more like silvers but with a some of the gold showing too. And since hens cant be split, they are either gold or silver and breeding a Silver roo on gold hens gives pure silver pullets, so when your cockerels start to develope the goldish coloring comming through then you know they are cockerels but its not going to be easily distinctable as day olds like the real sexlinks are because the males and females from a Silver roo are going to look pretty much the same until the males start to get in the goldish color, by which time the combs and sex feathers are usually starting to become apparent by then anyway.

 

[RAREROO]

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This is also true, and the so the different genes in the Seramas can throw off typical genetic rules if you dont know what other genes are in them. For instance I had a pair of Mottled Seramas, a Brown Red roo, and a solid black hen all together and mostly hatched blacks and mottleds from them which is what I expected, but I did get a white one from them as well. So at least one of the roos and one of the hens were carrying a copy of recessive white . So that shows how hidden genes can give through backs.

 

[RareBreedFancier]

I didn't know Seramas were even more complicated, that must be fun/frustrating for their breeders.
As if chicken genetics needed any more complications!

 

[RAREROO]

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Yeah I think most Serama breeders like the " box of chocolates" thing about Seramas becuase its fun to see what kinds of surprise colors come out when keeping all kinds of colors together.